“We were happy to be able to confirm the mechanism,” study co-author Ivan Hernandez told the Toronto Star on Tuesday.

“It would be great to show how it fits into the larger scheme of persuasion.”

In the first study, 133 subjects with a range of political ideologies read a text on capital punishment.

For some, the article was in the very common 12-point Times New Roman font. For others, the words were printed in a light grey bold and italicized Haettenschweiler font, a version of the original bold, condensed font which can be hard on the eye.

When the text was easy to read, “conservatives and liberals were highly polarized in their judgment, consistent with their prior attitudes,” the study said.